What did you expect really? The Imperium is a fascist regime. Its ruler thinks like a Hitler. "The Imperium is for PURE humans, not for altered abominations." Even from the first Heresy book it was clear that the more intelligent Astartes were worried about what the guy would do with them once they were no longer required.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth

Even Hitler liked dogs. the GEOM as written would kick the dog into a pen full of hungry badgers because that was his plan all along.

Seriously though, having Space Hitler Emperor actually care about his "sons" gave the character some...if not nuance then at least some relatability for the audience. Now, he's just an incompetent sociopath. If wanted more of that I would just watch the news.

"Gunslinger indeed. Quick draw, Bob. Quick draw." --Count Chocula

"Unquestionably, Dr. Who is MUCH lighter in tone than WH40K. But then, I could argue the entirety of WWII was much lighter in tone than WH40K." --Broomstick

"This is ridiculous. I look like the Games Workshop version of a Jedi Knight." --Harry Dresden, Changes

Seriously, though, did Rian Johnson get to Black Library? Grimdark not grimdark enough? Too bad grimderp has already been coined, because this revelation would have been the perfect opportunity.

Eeeh.
He said that to a dying old friend while he was holding her hand as she slipped away. Along with "it'll all be fine", and "Oh, I don't feel the horrors of living this long at all" and "Oh no, i'm not here to make sure daemons don't rape my secrets out of your soul as you die".

The very second he left, it was made quite obvious that he had not been honest. It doesn't mean that wasn't the plan, but it does mean it should be taken with giant heaping piles of salt given the context.

PhotographyGenius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

What did you expect really? The Imperium is a fascist regime. Its ruler thinks like a Hitler. "The Imperium is for PURE humans, not for altered abominations." Even from the first Heresy book it was clear that the more intelligent Astartes were worried about what the guy would do with them once they were no longer required.

If humans had to compete with a bunch of superhuman, near immortal ubermensch with eidetic memories, near immunity to disease, incredible physical and mental robustness, and very little empathy for outsiders, who do you think would survive?
Beyond Astartes beingmuch better than humans, full stop - any system with a lot of Astartes and/or Primarchs in it will naturally swing to favor them for doing anything - war, management, even psykers and librarians. There's not much room left for baseline homo sapiens with Astartes, save for breeding.

EDIT: Yes, I know Astartes can't breed/are likely rendered infertile.

PhotographyGenius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

According to he current lore, he already did this with the Thunder Warriors were GE supersoldiers who were better soldiers than the Astartes, but without any of their 'redeeming'qualities. He had them all killed once he had replacements in the Astartes, and now he's doing the same thing again? The HH books have always indicated there was a higher purpose to the Primarchs and Astartes beyond just soldiering.

Well, Horus thought that the Astartes were going to be administrators. So did RG, in fact he specifically had his boys be the rulers over the 500 worlds of Ultramar.

Both, though, were incredibly wrong about that the Big E was planning.

"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."

Starting Devastation of Baal. So, there are approximately 30k Astartes that showed up to defend Baal, and it's remarked that the BA didn't even know that there were that many of the Blood. Basically, it's a legion-size formation to defend the Baal system, and the turn out was far greater than when Dante asked for successor chapter leadership to visit to back-fill the BA's end strength.

Kind of skeezy to decide to obscure the ongoing disaster occuring at Cadia to everyone who mustered, but what can you do.

"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."

So, read The Emperor's Legion. It's seen from the POV of three individuals, a Custodes, a Sister of Silence, and the "Councilor of the High Lords". As far as I can tell, he's sort of the Chair/Presiding Officer of the High Lords. There is no real individual head of government in the Imperium, but he is close to it.

Anyway, he mentions off hand that there are quadrillions of humans on Terra, so I'm glad that they didn't take a minimalist route with Terra at least.

"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."

I'm curious, is this a result of the processes in creating the Astartes shriveling up the genitals into California raisins?

Or is it that the act of sex would pulverize the pelvis of the female partner and the Astrate's "release" would cut into her insides like a water jet cutter?

Well the base genome of the initiate isn't changed by becoming a marine. The enhancements they get are all discrete implanted organs rather than gene-therapy. If a marine did have a child it would be a normal human although I wouldn't be surprised if the various hormones the implants produce do a number on their reproductive system probably making them sterile or at least significantly reduced their fertility.

How does the Horus Heresy work if the Emperor has such a detached, impersonal view of his primarchs? Wouldn't he have terminated Horus with cold indifference when they finally battled, rather than letting Horus mortally wound him before he finally decides his son can't be saved?

It's a pity, because I otherwise really liked Master of Mankind (including the hints that the official origin story was false).

“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” -Jean-Luc Picard

"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."-Margaret Atwood

How does the Horus Heresy work if the Emperor has such a detached, impersonal view of his primarchs? Wouldn't he have terminated Horus with cold indifference when they finally battled, rather than letting Horus mortally wound him before he finally decides his son can't be saved?

For one, as of the end of "Vengeful Spirit", Spoiler

Horus has had a serious upgrade.
While it can be assumed that the Chaos gods were lying about whatever deal the Emperor made with them, it's inarguable that Horus recieved some sort of upgrade, that left everyone in the know comparing him very directly to the Emperor.

Additionally, he may have some spark of compassion inside his soul for "Some" of his creations.

e.g. Even Papa Nurgle feels love and lust (for Isha). Poor Isha.

PhotographyGenius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

I'm curious, is this a result of the processes in creating the Astartes shriveling up the genitals into California raisins?

Or is it that the act of sex would pulverize the pelvis of the female partner and the Astrate's "release" would cut into her insides like a water jet cutter?

Well the base genome of the initiate isn't changed by becoming a marine. The enhancements they get are all discrete implanted organs rather than gene-therapy. If a marine did have a child it would be a normal human although I wouldn't be surprised if the various hormones the implants produce do a number on their reproductive system probably making them sterile or at least significantly reduced their fertility.

Read Emperor's Gift by ADB. It's strongly implied that the twig and berries are still there (and quite impressive in the particular individual's case), but that the Grey Knights at least are so conditioned that they don't recognize human sexual signals. Other Chapters probably vary this to some degree. We're not ever likely to see GW elaborate further on this as they have to keep it PG-13 for the American market.

There was an older SW Codex that referred to a Wolf making a pass at a woman, and the Ragnar series had the Wolfblades on Terra, at least, recognize/understand sexual attraction.

"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."

Space Wolves are funky like that. Even in the newest edition they've got a character, Lukas the Trickster, who apparently still has human girlfriends (or so I hear, from r/40klore). Presumably it's all part of the variance of their gene-seed. Alternatively, IIRC Ragnar Blackmane gets lucky with a girl before he gets picked up by the Wolves, at a rather young age, but if you think about it deathworlds probably don't care too much about maturity. Reproducing equals species survival, so one can theorize that they might start younger on Fenris than on for example Macragge.

My understanding is that the Salamanders at least were sterile as mules, and it's implied the other Astartes chapters are the same.

And, weren't Astartes both genmodded and given implanted extra organs?!

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

My understanding is that the Salamanders at least were sterile as mules, and it's implied the other Astartes chapters are the same.

And, weren't Astartes both genmodded and given implanted extra organs?!

They are surgically augmented and given extra organs, but the base genome is still human. To a certain extent, anyway; there are no wolves on Fenris, after all...

Now, Adeptus Custodes are definitely heavily genetically engineered. They got a new codex and it's basically stated outright that they're effectively taken down almost to the molecular level and put back together.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Mind you, there's an incredible amount of variance canonically. It's just that GW simply doesn't like to talk about sex unless Slaanesh is involved, and even then only peripherally. So the general rule, particularly considering that the great majority of Chapters are descended from fairly straitlaced guys like the Imperial Fists, Ultramarines and Dark Angels, is that most Marines are effectively sexless/neutered thanks to the heavy conditioning and all the surgical and hormonal modifications. Salamanders are a little different as they maintain familial connections rather than severing those; Space Wolves are unusual all around; can't speak to any others.

And Cunto Suckcockeus is too much in love with himself to have time for another sexual affair.

Yeah, GW's just tight added that way.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

From HH Inferno. Note the context; it talks about distraction and cognitive effects as well as physical capability. Marines and Custodians can neither engage in sexual action or thought.

A friend of mine inquired with Gav Thorpe on this topic, and he mentioned that the degree of sterility of non-Slaanesh marines (who even then aren't likely to feel any sort of human lust so much as something bizzare) depends on writer. Some writers consider the Black Carapace implant to make Astartes into full eunuchs, (root and branch) and 'basically a Ken Doll' - others regard them to have no sexual ability or desire.

Sources indicating sexual activity from marines are basically older or dubious and often exaggerated by the fandom.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth

By way of example, The Emperor's Gift passage we've heard about is thus:

Emperor's Gift, P124 wrote:On more than one occasion I’d stood with her and her warband in the communal showers after training, blind and numb to any sensation of desire, watching her wash her hair and listening to her speak of serving in the sweltering jungles of Voroxis, killing heretics who spilled from a downed rogue trader vessel.

Bizarrely, the Khatan had declared, upon seeing me wash myself, that my ascension to knighthood was ‘a great shame’. Captain Castor had explained the meaning to me several months later, though I still didn’t see the humour in it.

Of course, the implication most readers get from this is that he has an impressive set of gentials, and the shame is that they are not being used; likewise, however, it is wholly convincing in context that Sosa Khatan's statement refers to the fact that he lacks genitals whatsoever - "it's a great shame that you're a eunuch." In no way whatsoever does it prove that astartes penises exist.

It certainly doesn't disprove the idea that Black Carapace renders the subject entirely without sex organs.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth